Trump's speech for his second term was a reworking of his 2017 speech, both underlined by his pledge to "put America first": a surefire way to rouse his support base.
onald Trump has been sworn in as president of the United States for a second term; and this time, there won’t be any arguments about crowd sizes. The most glaringly obvious difference in optics this time round, for both those in attendance and the millions watching around the world, was the fact that this year’s ceremony was conducted indoors.
The US has been experiencing significant snowfall and wintery conditions. As guests gathered in Washington, DC to see Trump sworn in as the 47th US president, the temperature was around minus 6 degrees Celsius.
Looking on was the Trump family: his wife Melania and his children Ivanka, Barron and Donald Jr. Joining them were many of the White House’s former residents, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as First Lady Jill Biden and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. Michelle Obama and Karen Pence, the wife of Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence, skipped the inauguration.
Amassed inside was an audience of the high and mighty of the American business world, including leaders of the major tech companies: Elon Musk, who spent US$300 million on supporting Trump’s election, was joined in prominent seats by Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook of Apple and Sundar Pichai of Google. It was the first time they had all congregated together since the July 2020 congressional hearings over their companies’ dominance in the tech market.
Foreign political leaders do not traditionally attend the US presidential inauguration. But this year, Argentinian President Javier Milei and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were invited by Trump. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer maintained tradition and sent Dame Karen Pierce, the outgoing British ambassador to the US, while Boris Johnson, a former British prime minister and a longtime supporter of Trump, also looked on.
After swearing his oath, Trump delivered his second inaugural address, telling the nation that “the golden age of America begins right now”. Criticizing the Biden administration, he said he would end “the vicious violent and unfair weaponization of the justice department", and that “the scales of justice will be rebalanced”.
“Our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free,” he added.
Turning to immigration, Trump continued his assault on the Biden administration, saying the Democratic White House had protected illegal immigrants who were “dangerous criminals”. This, he said, had led to a crisis in the nation’s political institutions. “We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home.”
To loud applause, Trump said the solution to the crisis was to declare a national emergency on the Mexico border. This would involve sending more troops and funds to the region and declaring the cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations”. By using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, Trump also said he would use the “full and immense power of the federal and state law enforcement” to combat criminal gangs in the US.
To finance this, Trump promised to make America a “rich nation again”. He pledged to beat inflation and “rapidly bring down costs and prices”. As well as the emergency on the southern border, he declared an energy emergency that he would defeat through increased oil and gas drilling. “Drill, baby, drill,” he said to acclaim from inside the Capitol Rotunda.
Trump then declared there were “only two genders, male and female” in the US. He vowed to make this an official policy of his government, and promised to sign an executive order that would roll back protections for transgender people and terminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs within the federal government.
For his international partners, he promised tariffs and the resumption of US control of the Panama Canal (it was turned over to Panama in 1999). Much to Hillary Clinton’s amusement, Trump promised to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and to increase US territory.
Where might this territorial gain be made? “We will pursue our manifest destiny,” Trump said, “to plant the stars and stripes on planet Mars.”
While clearly popular with the onlooking Musk, such territorial claims in space are prohibited by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which the US is a signatory.
There will now be much speculation about the implications of what Trump said. But what is just as interesting is what he left out: There was no mention of the conflict in Ukraine, or of Russia and NATO, and precious little of China.
His 2025 speech was a reworking of his denunciation of “American Carnage” in 2017; instead, he vowed to halt the US decline of the past four years. But the common theme in both was his pledge to “put America first”.
Although Trump said he would declare a national emergency on the southern border, what will happen over the next four years is unclear. Trump has promised a raft of radical and contentious initiatives in his effort to “make America great again”. What is certain is that there will be an array of executive orders from the Trump White House, with a particular focus on immigration.
Whether the US has the infrastructure to initiate the promised mass deportations (which is unlikely without the support of the armed forces) or the legal footing to nullify the 14th Amendment’s granting of citizenship to all those born in the US (doubtful, although the US Supreme Court is as right-leaning as – if not more than – it has been for the best part of a century) remains to be seen. But many Trump supporters will believe their “golden age” has just begun.
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The writer is a teaching fellow in international security at the University of Portsmouth. This article is republished under a Creative Commons license.
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